Peach Cobbler

It's peach season! That means peach cobbler!


Ingredients:

* 4 cups fresh peaches
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 1/4 cup brown sugar
* 1 tsp lemon juice

Topping:

* 1 cup flour
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1 tbs baking powder
* 4 tbs butter melted and cooled to room temp
* 1 tbs vanilla extract
* 3/4 cup milk


Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Add the slived peaches to a 3 qt ceramic baking dish
Add the sugat, brown sugar and lemon juice. Stir to coat the peaches in the mixture.
Bake for 10 minutes
While the peaches bake, in a medium size mixing bowl add the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Stir to combine.
Pour in the milk, melted butter and vanilla.
Remove the peaches from the oven and spoon the batter over the top of the baked peaches.
Continue to bake at 375 for another 35 minutes untilt he top is crispy and golden brown.
Serve cobbler warm or room temperature.

Apple Crisp

We have grew so many apples on our tree this year and they are SOOOO good that I had to try making apple crisp for the first time!

Turned out great so I of course am going to share the recipe.


Ingredients:

Topping
* 1/2 c Flour
* 1/2 c Old Fashioned oats
* 1/2 c Brown Sugar
* 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
* 1/4 tsp Cinnamon
* 1/4 tsp Salt
* 1/3 c Butter - diced into small cubes

Apple Filling
* 2 lbs Apples
*3 Tbs butter - melted
* 2 Tbs Flour
* 3 Tbs Water
* 1 Tbs Lemon juice
* 1/2 tsp Vanilla
* 1/4 c brown sugar
* 1/2 tsp cinnamon
* 1 pinch of salt


Instructions:

- Preheat oven to 375 and position oven rack on level below the center. Butter an 8 by 8 inch baking dish (or smaller casserole dish with a similar size) set aside.

- In a mixing bowl whisk together 1/2 cup flour, the oats, 1/2 cup brown sugar, the baking powder, 1/4 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp salt for 30 sec.

- Add diced butter and using clean fingertips, rub butter into dry mixture until it comes together into small crumbles. Transfer to refrigerator to chill while preparing filling.

- In a small mixing bowl, whisk together melted butter and flour until well blended, then mix in water, lemon juice and vanilla. Stir in 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and pinch of salt.

- Place apples in a large bowl then pour butter mixture over apples and toss to evenly coat, then pour apple mixture into prepared baking dish and spread into an even layer.

- Remove topping from the refrigerator and sprinkle into crumbles evenly over top of apples.

- Bake in preheated oven until top is golden brown and apples are tender when pierced with a toothpick, about 35 minutes.

- Remove from oven and allow to rest 10 minutes before serving. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream and salted carmel sauce if desired.                                                                                              

Parmesan Zucchini

When you have a TON of zucchini growing in your garden, you need to think of all the ways you can use it. At first I was just making zucchini bread and adding it to my adds... but then I decided to make zucchini sticks & zoodles. This parmesan mix was so delish on BOTH


Mix together:

1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste


If you are putting on zucchini sticks, preheat over to 350 degrees... place on baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil then sprinkle mixture on top and bake for about 15 minutes. Once it comes out of the oven you can garnish with chopped fresh parsley leaves if you wish. I hate mine with a portobello mushroom with melted cheese on top.

If you are putting on zoodles, drizzle zoodles with olive oil and then put parmesan mixture on top and  cook in frying pan until zoodles look done. I also cooked mine with already cooked shredded chicken.  Doesn't take long at all. Once I put it on my plate I added more parmesan and added some garden tomatoes and avocado (because I believe acovado makes everything taste better. ha ha.

Both were deliciouse. Both I would recommend.

Grape Juice

I love having an amazing garden in my backyard. Who knew I would love the country life so much?! But I do. One of my favorite things about the garden is the gazebo entrance that is covered in grape vines. Once they are ripe, you can smell the grapes. It is devine.

Now first I would like to say that I hate grape juice... store bought grape juice that is... but once I tried the juice from these grapes, it was a game changer. So much better than store bought grape juice and you don't even need to add sugar!

You just need the right tool to make the grape juice. Thankfully my sister, Kristy, does. So she let me borrow it and I gathered a ton of grapes and juiced a good amount to stalk up until next summer. My mom did the same and there are still SOOOOO many grapes on the vines. So our lucky chickens get a handful of grapes everyday.

Normally the juice is just white, but I added some of the purple eating grapes & some currants to give it some color. Turned out perfect!

Peanut Butter Nice Cream

I have been seeing a lot of pictures of Nice Cream.  It looked so good and a healthier version of Ice Cream... so I decided to give it a try. Getting the right consistency is pretty tricky, but I got close...


Peanut Butter Banana Nice Cream:

* Frozen sliced bananas
* Natural Peanut Butter
* Unsweetened Almond Milk
* Mini Chocolate chips


Instructions:

Step 1
Freeze sliced bananas: Simply slice bananas evenly and place ona baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Place the entire sheet in the freezer for at least 30 minutes. When you take your nanners out of the freezer, you will just need to scrape them off the parchment paper and place right in the blender (if you are making this peanut butter banananice cream right away), or into a ziploc or stasher bag to keep in the freezer for later use. Freezing the sliced babanas on a baking sheet will prevent your bananas from sticking together when you place them in a bag.

Step 2
Place all ingredients in a high speed blender or food processor. Measure out your frozen sliced bananas, natural peanut butter and almond milk and place in your high speed blender. You will want a serious blender for food processor for this step to ensure all the bananas are blended to perfection and not left as small chunks. It's the bananas that give this nice cream it's perfect ice cream consistency, so you will want to make sure they are blended fully. If you use your blender for smoothies with frozen ingredients, you are good to go here.

Step 3
Blend up all your ingredients until smooth. Deoending on how frozen solid your banana slices are, you may need to thin out your healthy ice cream with almond milk. We recommend thinning it with a tbsp of almond milk at a time until you get your desired consistency. At this point, you will want to grab those mini chocolate chips. Add them to your blender and pulse until they are folded into the nice cream.

Step 4
Because your banana slices were frozen when you started this recipe, the consistency of your nice cream should be perfect to serve up and enjoy immediately if you like the consistency of soft serve. But if you are making this ahead of time, or want a more traditional ice cream consistency, line a loaf pan with parchment paper and pour your nice cream into the pan. Store covered in your freezer and enjoy at your leisure.

And don't forget toppings! You could serve with extra chocolate chips and drizzle of peanut butter or whatever your heart desires.

I ended up trying this again except instead of peanut butter I put in some different fruit!